Here's what went down: A group of Russia's richest men Mikhail Fridman, German Khan, Viktor Vekselberg and Len Blavatnik, owned oil company TNK-BP along with Britain's BP.

For months, they've been talking to Rosneft, Russia's state oil company, about a sale. Today they did the deal and sold the company lock stock and barrel.

BP got a 20% stake in Rosneft, and everyone got about $40 billion in cash, according to Reuters. The billionaires themselves, collectively under the group Alfa-Access-Renova, got $27.73 billion of that payout.

And scary though he may be, the oligarchs obviously think he's trustworthy, as they didn't make Snechin sign a guarantee of payment.

Here's what Viktor Vekselberg (who is expected to personally net $7 billion off the deal) said about that in January (from Bloomberg):

"We signed an agreement, any guarantee letters are needless," the Renova Group chairman told reporters in Moscow today. "We deal with such a respected company as Rosneft, and with its respected managers. We trust them."